Yunior García Aguilera is a Cuban actor, playwright, and activist, founder of Trébol Teatro and the Facebook group Archipiélago. He was born in Holguín, Cuba in 1982.
His long and solid theatrical career began when he was just in fourth grade, writing and acting with classmates. In his hometown of Holguín, he joined the Asociación Hermanos Saíz (AHS), which allowed him to gain experience and publish his works. He took on the artistic direction of the theater company Alas Buenas, whose play, Sangre, was awarded seven prizes at the National Festival of Small Format in Santa Clara.
At the age of 17, he joined the National School of Art (ENA), specializing in acting. In 2003, he founded the Trébol Teatro project along with young actors who graduated from ENA, aiming to create a distinct discourse and foster a creative and innovative space. That same year, he completed his studies in acting at the ISA (Higher Institute of Art), graduating with honors.
He has written scripts for television and for film. Pig (Fiction short film made in 2018) was presented at the 40th edition of the Latin American Film Festival.
Yunior was one of the key figures of the November 27, 2020 (27N) protests that took place in front of the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) by a group of artists, intellectuals, activists, and the general public following the events that occurred at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement the night before. On November 26, the police evicted the young people who had taken shelter at that headquarters in order to demand the government's release of the rapper Denis Solís González. Some had also been on hunger strike for several days.
From this peaceful demonstration, a group was democratically selected to meet with the Deputy Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas, and other government representatives. The aim was to engage in dialogue to achieve agreements that respect creative freedoms, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press, as well as to end the repression of artists whose work deviates from the official message established by the Cuban regime. Yunior was part of the group alongside Katherine Bisquet, Tania Bruguera , Camila Acosta, and others.
The playwright was once again in the news following the events that took place in Cuba on July 11, 2021 (11J), when the people across the island spontaneously took to the streets in a historic demonstration against living conditions, poor government management, and the lack of freedoms. He was peacefully protesting alongside other young artists outside the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) when they were violently forced into a garbage truck by State Security agents.
Subsequently, he was transferred to the Vivac prison in Arroyo Naranjo and released days later with a precautionary measure that prohibited him from leaving his home. From his house, García Aguilera became one of the most visible faces of this social uprising. He granted interviews to numerous international media outlets, in which he defended the Cuban people's right to build a different country while denouncing the violent repression that culminated in several disappearances and the unjust imprisonment of more than 600 protesters.
In July 2021, the Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez published a statement questioning the police repression against the protesters during the protests of July 11. Yunior responded to Silvio with a post on his social media that quickly went viral, in which he asked the musician for 15 minutes of dialogue. A few days later, this meeting took place at the Ojalá studios of the troubadour.
García Aguilera defines himself as "a civic artist who wants to build a better country where his son can defend his thoughts without facing violence in the streets and can think freely without having to emigrate." He does not see himself as a politician, but as "a citizen promoter of ideas who seeks to transform his reality and advocates for horizontal leadership, based on consensus, where collective intelligence prevails and where power and decisions do not rest on a single figure."*(1)
On August 9, 2021, Archipiélago was created, a Facebook group that has more than 23,000 followers and aims to give a voice to all Cubans who want to build a new Cuba, inclusive of the exile and the diaspora, while also setting specific objectives for that construction.
Those objectives are:
1. Fight for the liberation of all individuals who were detained on July 11, 2021.
2. Attempt to carry out the first authorized peaceful anti-government demonstration with all legal guarantees, without repression or violent incidents.
3. Call for a plebiscite with all guarantees upheld by the 2019 constitution that allows the sovereign will of the people of Cuba to be decided at the polls.
In September 2021, Archipiélago requested authorization from the Government to march against violence in Havana on November 20. In the following days, other provinces on the island submitted this request to their respective Provincial Government offices, thus joining the call.
Like other activists, Yunior has been besieged in his own home, preventing him from moving freely. He has been interrogated several times by State Security officials and is a victim of daily harassment by the repressive forces, even being monitored by up to eight agents at a time.
On October 4, 2021, the Center for Studies on the Rule of Law, Cuba Próxima, announced the inclusion of the playwright in its Deliberative Council.
Source:
(1) and (2) taken from Proyecto Archipiélago, interview with Mónica Baró, August 13, 2021, 23yFlagler
